Decadence

“This species has amused itself to death.” Roger Waters

Welcome to 2020!

The year that for decades was pegged as a defining future moment has finally arrived. Various projects or “vision 2020” initiatives existed as mechanisms to focus thinking and efforts to create an enhanced result. For many, these efforts centred around the realisation of a collective economic or political goal or aspiration. We imagined healthy economies and prospering communities, with maybe an element of social wellness. We imagined the productive use of technologies to advance and benefit humans, to benefit and entertain ourselves.

More wealth + more health = a more satisfied and content version of ourselves.

But there is so much that we failed to imagine and that the law of unintended consequences would play out on a grand scale. Did we imagine that a connected ‘global village’ would both build and burn bridges between people? That some would harness the power of social media and 24/7 connectedness to seed hate and harvest destruction? Did we see that hot spot tourism would reach melting point temperatures and burn out the very attractions that the masses came to see? How could we imagine that miraculous pocket sized devices would become so addictive and lead to the ultimate irony of a room full of people ignoring each other in order to be ‘connected’?

As I write this Australia wakes to a red dawn with apocalyptic scenes of unprecedented fire activity that is consuming forests, farms, thousands of homes and tragically, the occasional life. This is the other “more” that we did not foretell so well; more extreme weather, more fires, more loss of coastlines, more destruction of infrastructure built by human endeavour.

In the Bible, the apocalypse describes scenes of epic destruction, plague and pestilence wreaked upon mankind. But that is not what I see. It’s getting harder for me to look at humankind and to not imagine that it is we who are the pestilence, that we are the plague unleashed on the only viable ecosystem in the known universe. That a species that numbered in the low millions for many Millenia would suddenly explode into billions, whilst doubling the average lifespan and exponentially consuming resources that far outweigh historic averages was not anticipated. That we could move from adjusting and modifying our immediate surrounds, to having the collective power to unintentionally change the atmosphere and biosphere did not exist in the wildest dreams of our pioneering ancestors.

But we have. We did. And we are still doing.

I am by nature a designer and inventor with a positive outlook on life. I never intended to sound this glum, to be looking back with regret on the state of the planet and to have a hint of pessimism about our future prospects. And I’m not filled with dread and despair of what lies ahead, but I do feel a growing weight of responsibility to contribute to a brighter future for my boys. A “Vision 2050” where the excessive pursuit of our personal wealth and edification at the expense of all else has ceased. Where the wealth of nations is not measured by the inept concept of gross domestic product. Where our relationship to natural resources becomes more symbiotic and that the planet ultimately benefits from our presence.

A future where less is truly more.

So, what will I do in the next decade? How can I play my part? What changes will I make to my lifestyle? Can I dream or invent something to make a difference? These thoughts are motivating and invigorating, they are inspiring. 2020 will be the start of a new chapter in our lives and for our planet. Let’s make this next decade count and contribute.

I hope you wake to the same dream.